


conversations in the dark

by nanrea



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Pining, taconite mines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-27 20:51:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6299953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nanrea/pseuds/nanrea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When I think of you in the city<br/>The sight of you among the sites<br/>I get this sudden sinking feeling<br/>Of a man about to fly<br/>Never kept me up before<br/>Now I've been awake for days<br/>I can't fight it anymore<br/>I'm going through an awkward phase"<br/>-the national "demons"</p>
            </blockquote>





	conversations in the dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DrJekyl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrJekyl/gifts).



They were a mile below the surface of the Earth, somewhere in the middle of the North American continent, following a troop of engineers and their tattooed guide to a reported bunker that might be full of refugees who hadn’t yet heard that the war was over, when Wrex finally broke the silence. “So . . .” he said. “How’ve things been since the last time I saw you guys?” The inanity of the question struck him immediately. Where else have Jack and Samara been, but fighting this fucking war, just like him. Uh. “Any plans for when they reopen the relays?” That’s better.

Jack turned around with a snarky grin. “I’m going where ever they send me, Big Guy. Gotta keep these kids in line, you know?” She said more loudly, eliciting groans from the small straggling line of human biotics trailing them. She dropped back to walk alongside Wrex, still grinning affably. The war hadn’t mellowed her, but all her ‘kids’ surviving the final push certainly had, Wrex noted.

On his other side, Samara seemed to sink deeper into silence. Wrex took her in with a side eyed glance and a low growl. The justicar had always struck him as a cold fish, but now in the aftermath of whatever explosion Shepard had set off, something seemed to have broken that icy core of strength in her, and the longer they went without news from the Citadel recovery teams, the more splintered she seemed to get.

He had to admit, it was getting to him too, the radio silence. Five days seemed like too short a time, and an eternity, to know if Shepard had succeeded in destroying the Reapers, and almost more importantly, if she had survived.

The devastation of the Citadel, at least, had been obvious immediately.

But there wasn’t much Wrex could do about that. He had suffered a broken arm, a punctured tertiary lung and a ruptured primary gallbladder in the Battle for Earth, as the humans had taken to calling it, or the Galaxy’s Last Stand, as the two surviving council members had more diplomatically termed it. His injuries had kept him from being able to join any of the strenuous recovery work either in and around Earth’s major cities, or up on the citadel. Instead he had been permitted, once he had gotten back on his feet two days ago, to join exploratory recovery missions as a “Visiting Biotic Expert” attached to Jack’s unit. Samara, who sported some impressive stitching along one cheek up almost to her scalp crests, and a large bandage on her left side thick enough to be visible through the tight fabric of her body suit, had joined as well.

He’d been surprised to learn he’d been put under the supervision of another of Shepard’s krantt. He’d met Jack in passing when Shepard had brought her down for Grunt’s Rite of Passage, and later at that last, memorable party on the Citadel, and had taken an immediate liking to her. The ex con had a quad, he had to grant her that, and probably more to spare. And she took to bossing around her human teenaged charges in a way that reminded him of his Camp Mother, back when he hadn’t even gone through his own Rite of Passage.

Half forgotten memories of the Urdnot Mothers’ Camp made him think of Bakara, though, so he tried to push it away. He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten to demand a QEC for Tuchanka, he groused to himself. With the comm buoys down, the relays too heavily damaged to send or receive any information, and no QEC, he’d have to wait years to get any kind of radio or light signal from his homeworld.

If the remnants of the galactic community didn’t either repair the relays or destroy the Sol system in the meantime.

“How much further til we reach the target, Jack?” one of the human kids broke into his morose thoughts. Rodrick or Rodimus or something like that, he thought her name was. Human names all kind of blended together after a while.

“Calm your tits, Rodriguez.” Oh. “Map says it’ll be another five minutes, maybe.”

“If I may enquire, Jack, what were these tunnels used for?” Samara finally asked. “That information was not included in the briefing I was given.”

“Isaac,” Jack called out.

“Old taconite mine, I think,” one of the other biotic students answered. “This region used to be mined heavily for iron and other ores back in the Twentieth and Twenty First centuries, and after it was tapped out, this mine was converted into resource storage in case of surface devastation. Starting in 2042, the United Nations authorized the site for provisioning with seed stores and genetic information to hold in reserve for global disaster, and during the First Contact War further authorizations--”

“Get to the point, Isaac,” Jack interrupted. Wrex filed the idea of long term food preservation in the back of his mind. The idea was interesting. Bakara would-- his thoughts stuttered out. He was trying not to think of her, for fuck’s sake. He was starting to feel like an untried youngling, the way his thoughts kept spinning back to her. Ugh.

But. Bakara would like it, he was sure. As a coming home gift, maybe, she’d appreciate an idea for the krogan’s future almost as much as she surely appreciated the cure for the Genophage and the ultimate defeat of the Reapers.

“Ah, right, Ma’am,” the kid sputtered. “Ahh, reports suggest that some of the people of this region may have evacuated down to the storage facility, when the Reapers first invaded. Lines of communication to it appear to have been deliberately destroyed. We are here as support to the--”

“We know why we’re here, kid,” Wrex interrupted this time. He really didn’t feel like being reminded that he had been demoted to biotic support crew during his incapacitation.

But, well. Not much call for krogan military power, right now. All his surviving troops had been volunteered up as clean up crew by a highly persuasive Admiral Hackett. No wonder Shepard had ended up doing the old human so many chores back on the SR1. The man was able to poke holes in every one of Wrex’s objections.

The faster the humans are able to repair their infrastructure, the sooner the krogan would be able to return to Tuchanka. Hah! Logic. Who needs it?

Bakara would love the guy.

“Thank you,” Samara said. 

He glanced over at the asari, again noticing that oddly jangling note to her that hadn’t been there the first time he met her. He’d never met a Justicar, but he’d been around enough asari to have heard about them. Straight laced sticks in the mud, even for asari, made turians look undisciplined in comparison. Hmmph. Looks like something is making this one slip up a little bit.

A shout from one of the humans in the group ahead of them cut off the conversation. Wrex tensed, ready for combat, and felt the two alien biotics on either side start to give off energy as well, while the kids behind him tightened into a well honed support formation. One of the engineers, a salarian, came trotting out of the gloom, and he relaxed as he took in the man’s relaxed posture.

“Ahh, biotics,” he called. “Request assistance removing blockage in front. Appears recent cave in has cut off access to facility.”

Jack let her biotic field dissipate with a sneer. “Alright kids, clean up time!” She called out. Wrex got the sense that she would have preferred a battle, and couldn’t help but agree. She and the other human biotics followed the salarian deeper into the tunnels at a trot, leaving the two injured aliens to trail after them at their leisure. As “experts” they didn’t have much else to do but observe, he’d learned. Probably Hackett’s clever way of keeping them both from injuring themselves further while making themselves feel useful.

Great.

Samara’s biotics slowly released as they walked, as if she hadn’t noticed that the possibility of a threat had passed. She seemed almost to sink deeper into herself, as if she’d gotten lost in the tunnels of her own mind instead of sedately following a clear path through the all too real tunnels of the old mine.

Wrex couldn’t take it anymore. It was bad enough the silence was making him get lost in his own damn thoughts.

“Wanna talk about it?” he burst out.

“What?” The Asari blinked as if the Krogan had woken her from slumber instead of just interrupting a train of thought.

“Look, you’ve obviously got something bugging you. Want. To. Talk. About. It,” Wrex reiterated.

A slight frown flitted across her drawn features. “Why do you wish to speak of it?” she asked at length.

“You used to run with Shepard, right?” He shrugged. “So you’re like her krantt, and I am her krantt. You know how krogan are about our krantt. Can't have a weak one, and your lollygagging is putting in a piss poor showing for a member of Shepard's krantt! Also if it turns out there IS some pocket of Reapers left down here, I can’t have you distracted. Which you obviously are. So. Talk.”

Samara’s eyes had been drawn to his face during this odd speech, and they widened as she took in what he was saying. “Well,” she said. 

Wrex felt a smug grin spread on his face. Not often you get to surprise an asari Matriarch. Old broads think they’re the wisest and oldest things in the universe, forgetting that the krogan can match them decade for decade easily. He’d lay odds that he was older than Samara by a century or two, even.

“It is . . . about. Shepard,” she finally said as they finally grew close enough to see the engineers and Jack’s biotic squad clearing debris and shoring up the roof of the tunnel around a pair of large steel doors. “I. At this point. I worry that she may not have survived, and.” She swallowed convulsively. “I am afraid. This may have . . . shaken my convictions more than I am prepared to admit.”

He studied the asari, drawn stiff and upright in her tight red body suit. “Huh,” he grunted after a minute. “Thought Justicars weren’t supposed to do the relationship thing. Remove all romantic and familial attachments and all that.”

She blinked at him. “That is. Not entirely correct,” she said after a moment. “Justicars foreswear having children and family, but we do not necessarily have to abstain from . . . relationships. But,” and she turned away, frowning. “It is not just any attachment I may have formed to Shepard that troubles me. She has . . . shown me that the Code may not be the path I should follow anymore, if it demands that I . . . she saved my Falere, and myself, and I feel I may owe her a debt I can never repay if she is not returned to us alive. And . . . perhaps, if she returns, I can finally answer the question she asked me before she led us to the Collector base.”

Wrex hummed. “Shepard has a way of making you rethink your choices,” he said. “She did something similar for me when we were going after Saren.” He gave the Justicar a friendly pat on the back, causing her to stagger a little bit, a startled look on her face. “Whatever you do, don’t count her out just yet, though. The Void couldn’t hold her before, and I can’t see it holding her now.”

The tension at last seemed to ease from Samara’s shoulders. “Thank you, Wrex,” she said as Jack called for them to join them inside the finally opened facility. “I will take your words under consideration.” And together, they turned to join the humans in their celebration of life over death.

**Author's Note:**

> No wonder so many people just avoid doing summaries, haha. Everything I tried to write just sounded horribly trite!
> 
> Anyway please forgive the liberal addition of one of my pet headcanons about where humanity could take refuge during the invasion, and any ooc-ness of the characters, it's my first time writing any of them. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this. I kind of ended up taking your prompts for Samara rethinking her career and Wrex/Bakara realizing their relationship is more than political and smooshing them together. It's not what I was expecting to happen when I started, but I enjoyed writing it. Wrex and Samara are such different characters that it was fun trying to figure out how they'd interact. I hope it's not going out on too much of a limb to think that Wrex would regard Shepard and the rest of the Normandy crew as krantt, but I can't help but feel that he would, from what we see in the Citadel DLC.
> 
> Also, rest assured, Shepard survives in this story :)


End file.
